Center for Labor Education & Research, University of Hawaii - West Oahu: Honolulu Record Digitization Project

Honolulu Record, Volume 10 No. 9, Thursday, September 26, 1957 p. 6

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TV & Radio

ON SEPT 20, the day the story broke about the over-wrought wife of KGMB disc lockey Don Chamberlain surrounding him with bullets in their Waikiki apartment, Chamberlain skipped the story on the main CBS news roundup at 7 a.m.

At the 7 30 news break, Chamberlain gave a personalized account of the near-tragedy Why cannot local news jockeys handle all human predicaments with the same taste and care?

Loud-mouth Akuhead on KHVH made typical comment on the Chamberlain mix-up He said that Mrs Chamberlain just couldn't take her husband's radio show any longer. That's why she blew up.

And Aku guffawed What price professional dignity?

Like many other shows on local TV, the Lucky Lager weekly "Sports Time" is fouled up by inserts of locally produced Lucky Lager commercials which are ham plus.

The local spokesman tries to affect Ivy League nonchalance which to add insult to injury, is poorly (cheaply) staged and photographed.

Why can't "Sports Time" be run with only the mainland produced commercial inserts. They are lively short and to the point.

The deterioration of TV and radio has caused Pope Pius XII to issue a 15,000-word encyclical calling for the immediate establishment of national committees to judge the moral qualities of radio, television and movies and compel decent programs."

Speaking of the breaking up of TV shows by too many and too long commercials, Hollywood interests have decided that they'll underwrite henceforth the cost of
the nation-wide broadcasts of the annual Oscar presentations.

Oldsmobile until now has picked up the tab and interrupted the dignity of the show with plugs for its cars.

Hollywood at long last agrees that viewers will enjoy the show better without the inserts of hucksterism. Hollywood is cooperatively digging for the cost for which last year Oldsmobile paid $500,00 in network charges plus $169,000 to produce.

Maybe when this year's Oscar T-show is aired here, it will be loused up with local inserts for savings stamps, etc.

Local TV  viewers are fed up with the flickery re-runs of too many shows. Their apprehension was increased when Ralph Beck Jr., spokesman for Hawaiian Telephone Co., made an explanation to the Advertiser last week.

Beck's company—a privately-owned utility—spends, he said, "about $20,00 a year on TV." It sponsors "Telephone Time" once a week over KULA-TV.

Said Beck: "Our company buys a run of shows for the year. But we don't get 52 shows, one for each week. We get only 39 shows. That means 13 of them have to be repeats. That's just the way it is. There's nothing a sponsor can do about it."

Does Beck seriously mean that his company is COMPELLED to buy the 13 re-runs? Why not spend the re-run amount on another network? After all, whatever Beck's company spends on "goodwill" publicity is charged to operating overhead and, pro rata, it is added to the bills of phone customers.

Beck, as a public utility man, should have more consideration for his customers and TV-viewers and shop around for quality entertainment.

p /> I do not say that at odd hours a patient must be given the regular hot dinner or supper. Few people would expect this.
 
But what is so complicated about opening and heating a can of soup, making some toast, or preparing instant coffee or tea? Why cannot a night nurse do these simple things after the kitchen to closed? Is it just too much trouble?

It is only common humanity to feed the hungry. If our hospitals are too big, too complex, too impersonal to do these small kindnesses for the sick, something is very wrong.